Paul Hagen has repeatedly represented to the Humboldt County progressives that he has their best interests at heart. If that is Mr. Hagen’s goal, Mr. Hagen must know that the actions he continues to take to tear down our District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, are directly assisting Allison Jackson and the conservative movement to eviscerate Humboldt County’s progressive movement.

Paul Hagen recently sent a letter to the Arcata Eye claiming that Paul Gallegos is not an alternative now that Mr. Hagen is no longer in the running. Mr. Hagen makes many broad based and generalized attacks on Mr. Gallegos in that letter such as claiming Mr. Gallegos deliberately smeared his opponent and lied doing it. He also makes many dated and petty attacks. Even the editor of the Arcata Eye admitted that he does not believe Mr. Gallegos has engaged in this smear type behavior – recognizing the smearing has generally come from anonymous supporters for both sides.

Unfortunately, the conservative movement has been celebrating their new hero, Paul Hagen and hoping to ride the infighting among liberals to victory. Paul Hagen’s letters condemning Paul Gallegos are displayed prominently on a local blog called Watch Paul, which is the same site promoting Allison Jackson’s candidacy and filled with negative smear tactic character assassinations of Mr. Gallegos – the same type of tactics Mr. Hagen claims he abhors. The Watch Paul blog which is now posting Mr. Hagen’s articles states the following:

“The original purpose of WatchPaul is to post important documents relating to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his handlers who seek to gain power through the acquisition of political offices. This includes, but is not limited to, the manipulations of “Humboldt Watershed Council,” “EPIC,” “Baykeeper,” and other activist groups – the unregulated orgs.”

In other words, Paul Hagen, whether knowingly or unwittingly, is providing “documents” about Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos that are now being used in a coordinated effort to crush our important progressive groups such as Humboldt Watershed Council, EPIC, Baykeeper, and other progressive groups.

We all hope and believe that Paul Hagen is not doing this intentionally, but the fact remains that is simply irresponsible for Paul Hagen to help tear down the progressive movement that so many of us worked so hard to create (long before Paul Hagen moved here). Mr. Hagen has privately questioned Allison Jackson’s ethics and commitments to progressive causes, but refuses to do so publicly. Why?

Paul Hagen does not like Paul Gallegos – we get that. But does he really want to spite the local progressive movement just to settle a score? In the words of scripture: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Cor 13.